THE POTTER AND THE CLAY

There is nothing human that is older than  the potter's art; and pottery, shaped on the potter's wheel, has been,  in all literature and all ages, a chosen symbol of the Creator's shaping  of the plastic clay of which we are actually made. The modern process is  equally suggestive. In one factory alone in North Staffordshire, eight  mills are employed for merely reducing hard flint stones to the finest  powder, afterwards churned with water into a fluid mass; and out of this  moist, plastic clay97apt symbol of our hard heart when first it is in   the Potter's hand for molding97an immense  variety of vessels is fashioned of every beauty and for every use. First  dried by steam97for if subjected to the furnace heat at once, the  earthenware would crack and break97the vessel is afterwards put into  the fierce heat of the oven, after which, and only after which, it is  able to take the ornamental patterns of the original design. Secondly, a   single dinner plate will pass through ten or twelve hands; until at  last, the process complete, in the showroom are ranged colors  inlaid by adversity97for the scorching heat of a kiln has to supplement  the oven, in order to "fix" the colors, all the triumphs  of the potter's art. "Arise, and go down to the potter 's house  and  learn," says Jehovah (Jer. 18:1): It is   a chosen symbol of God.

First we behold the Potter, with the clay in his hand, and the hidden  design in his heart97even as Palissy used to dream: "the potter wrought  his work on the wheels" (Jer. 18:3). Our life is no blind whirring of   wheels; it is no random shaping by accident, or by chance; the turn of  the wheel lifts us up in joy, or it dashes us down in sorrow97but "as  the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine" (Jer. 18:6). There is  a Divine ideal for every man--an archetype, an unwrought design--in the  mind of the Potter like the unhewn angel Michael Angelo ever saw in the  marble; every human life is created to be a vessel filled with sanctity  and beauty, meet for the Master's use; and, above all, no mother,  leaning over the cradle of her little child, ever had more tender or   lovely dreams than God has over the soul newly born at the foot of the  Cross; from the first moment of conversion, the lovely curves begin to  form. As a medieval sculptor exclaimed as he surveyed the unhewn marble,  "What a god-like beauty thou hidest!"

But what did Jeremiah see? "Behold, the potter wrought his wrought on  the wheels, and the vessel that he made of the clay was marred"97the  Septuagint Version has "fell"; it is a spiritual fall "in the hand of  the potter". The figure is a profound revelation of God and the human  soul. It is a startling disclosure both of the omnipotence, and of the   self-imposed limitations of Deity. "Hath not the potter a right over the   clay?" (Ro. 9:21)--authority, not brute force, authority to shape   its destiny according to the contents of the vessel. "As the clay in the   potter's hand, so are ye in Mine." Here lies the clay97a dead, heavy,   amorphous mass, with no life, no secret of evolution in it, no power to  shape itself--our cradle, our sex, our capacities, our class, our  physique, our death-hour97the Potter is absolute with the clay. But lo,  the clay is MARRED in the hand of the Potter; not out of the  hand. The Angel refuses to spring from the marble. It never falls out of  the hand of the Potter; it is marred in it. All creation is Divine  self-limitation. The Potter can only work within the limits of clay--a  flaw, a rebellious and intractable mingling of impurities, a hard   resistance to the molding wheel, and lo, the  vessel is marred! God has left it to each of us to decide whether we  shall be a vessel unto honor, or a vessel unto  dishonor. So Paul says, "If a man purge himself from these"97these   what? Cowardice, want of faith, a controversial spirit, wrong handling  of Scripture, ungodliness, error on resurrection, retention of old  sins97" he shall be a vessel UNTO HONOUR" (II. Ti 2:21).  "If I am not becoming better," Oliver Cromwell wrote in his Bible, "I  shall soon cease being good."--a marred vessel. Were we mere  clay, fatalism would be our right theology97God, we could say, will  shape us to perfection whatever we do and whatever we are, exactly as  stars revolve, or trees grow; but no! We can break down in the hands of  the Potter. If the lump of clay gets at all out of plumb, if it deviates   to the right or left, it flies off at a tangent and smashes; at all  costs we must keep central97in the will of God, in the truth of  God, in the obedience of God, or else our "eccentricity"--the loss of  touch with the central Christ--will fly off into a shattered  discipleship.

But now once again there bursts on our ears the music no human organ  ever made. "And when the vessel was marred in the hand of the potter, he  made it again another vessel." Behold our patient God! He need  never have molded the ugly, shapeless  mass at all; much more might He now discard the spoiled, twisted jar to  the rubbish heap, but that is not God. Our life may be a marred and a  broken thing, but God can re-make it into a fresh form of Divine beauty.  The whole Bible is alive with the truth that men--all men--can escape   from evil, from all evil; and that God is eager and longing to  co-operate in the escape. He can reshape the most unshapely into the  very image of Jehovah; He can twist the stubborn clay by toil, by agony,  by tears until it is conformed to the image of His Son. But the  re-making is a painful process. The clay has to be crushed back into mud  again; and the Potter has to knead it on his bench, until it is plastic  enough to take a fresh shape. In the English Potteries they enamel a   vessel with black; then put it into an oven, and the scorching heat  turns the black to gold. It is the only way they can make the  gold. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be", but by touch of  hand and push of foot and splash of color, the dizzy whirl of  the flying wheels will have one day shaped the solid base, and cut the  dainty rim, and molded the exquisite  curves, and " fixed " the glowing colors97like unto the Son  of God.

But God uses this picture for a word of tremendous warning to the  unsaved. There are limits both to the mill and to the power of the   Potter. Some clays are very pure, and rich, and pliable--almost  white--so that they can be made into the finest porcelain. Others are  too soft97"fat" is the technical term97to be used as they are; others  have such an excess of iron in them, that they can be used only for  colored earthenware; other clay, again, will form, but will  twist or crack in the firing. "Cannot I do with you as this potter?"  saith the Lord. Yes, is the answer, but only as the potter can: "as in  the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine." So long as the car? is  plastic, it will take any shape. Let it once be "fired," and it is  plastic shapeable clay no more; its mould can now never be altered. It  is possible for a heart and a life to grow so hard that it can only be  destroyed. "And he shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken,   breaking it in pieces without sparing so that there shall not be  found among the pieces thereof a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or  to take water withal out of the cistern" (Isa. 30:4).

We must be molded into the holy will  of the Potter, or else all that can be done, for the world's sake, is an  irremediable smashing97shattered fragments that can never be gathered  again97" everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." How  wisely the greatest sculptor of all time--the highest kind of the  potter's art97Michael Angelo, wrote in his diary, "I die in the faith  of Jesus Christ, and in the firm hope of a better life."

A world of pathos, an unfathomable mystery, lies in one word:  "ANOTHER vessel". What is this second vessel? Is the twisted clay to be  made into a more beautiful vase--brighter, purer, holier, more wonderful   because of the crushing and the shaping, molded to a lovelier form,  and a finer use; or is it God's vessel still, but never again to be what  it once might have been? Must the bird with the broken pinion never fly  as high again? If God alters our circumstances, or re-shapes our life,  is it because we have failed Him in the old sphere; or is it because he  wants a heavenlier mould for a rarer use? Only God knows. Yet  grace still lasts, and common clay can yet be changed into Sevres china.  When God cannot make of us what He would, He patiently makes of us what   He can; it is part of the Potter's craft to re-make with loving fingers  the broken and the marred. God turns the oyster's wound into a pearl. So  this is our prayer: "We are the clay, and Thou our potter" (Isa. 64:8).  Miss Winifred A. Cook voices the cry of the clay:

Here in Thy Hands I lay
My worthless, broken clay;
Re-mould to Thy design,
And in Thy way.

Alas, such clay as mine
Can even Thy fires refine,
Thy furnace re-create,
And render Thine?

Yet place upon Thy wheel
My yielded clay, and steel
My will to bear Thy stroke,
Receive Thy seal.

Then breathe therein and fill
My vessel frail, until
Only Thy life appear,
Thy mind, Thy will.

O Loveliness inwrought,
O Wonder past all thought,
That Thou should'st glorify
A thing of naught.

Shapely and set in gold,
Fashion'd by Love untold,
Nothing shall henceforth marr
This heavenly mould!

For so is expressed the glory of  God. "We have this treasure"--the light of the knowledge of the glory of  God--"in EARTHEN VESSELS, that the exceeding greatness of the  power"--the shaping of the amorphous clay97"may be of God, and not from  ourselves" (II. Co. 4:7). A frail body, a  fallible judgment, an imperfect testimony, a sin-soiled character, a   harassed life; nevertheless, "a dying hand may sign a deed of   incalculable value" (Cecil).

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